drmelon

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gamedev (snolf romhack) ๐Ÿ‰ music ๐Ÿ‰ interactive fiction ๐Ÿ‰ pyjama elemental ๐Ÿ‰ nonbinary pan ๐Ÿ‰ ๐Ÿ’œ @leafcodes

@drmelon@mastodon.gamedev.place


ticky
@ticky

You may be familiar, even if merely by reputation, with Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), a colossal disaster of a game which has been much dissected over the years.

If you're not familiar, you may have missed the true champion of Sonic 2006, Middle-aged Man:

A man in a grey shirt and black, backwards baseball cap says "I've combined happy and lucky into one word! Luppy!"


blazehedgehog
@blazehedgehog

Recently I had my own "giving Sonic 06 the benefit of the doubt" moment that ended in a bizarre realization.

A balding, late middle age man named Alberto Robert rambles at length to Sonic the Hedgehog about making new types of shoes for the residents of Soleanna.

In Sonic 06, one of the very first things you do in Sonic's story is a quest for an old man named Alberto Robert where he wants to give Sonic a special pair of shoes. It's been a few years, but I think these shoes give Sonic the lightspeed dash, which enables him to access the game's first level, Wave Ocean. You complete a simple challenge, basically a gameplay tutorial on how to move and jump with Sonic, and he gives you the shoes.

An infamous Sonic 2006 loading screen with the quest title, 'The winder of a Shoemaker'

The quest/mission/challenge/whatever is called "The winder of a Shoemaker." And, for the last 17 years, I've taken that completely at face value. What's a Winder? No idea, but it's used with such confidence that I just assumed it's obscure regional slang and it just washed over me.

Until basically a couple nights ago when somebody pointed it out that it was probably a typo. In Japanese, the mission is apparently ๅฅ‡่ทกใฎ้ด่ทไบบ -- which Google Translate tells me means "Miracle Shoemaker", but more specifically it's been said the quest was probably meant to be titled "The Wonder of a Shoemaker."

Literally the first thing you do in the whole entire game has a typo in it that they never corrected. Sonic 06 even had a patch or two! It even had a PS3 version come out nearly three months after the Xbox version! And nobody ever said "Hey wait a minute"

Now, to be fair, winders are a real thing. Several things, actually. Mechanical clocks have winders for their gears, there are winders in metalworking, and there are winders in sewing. Depending on your accent, winders are even the thing you open to let fresh air in.

But in this context? It means nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's just a typo.

Shoutouts to vgperson for digging up and translating the original Japanese quest title, plus Dr. Melon and Madelyn Himegami for the reminder of vgperson's translation in the videochess world discord. I'm still recovering from this realization.



vectorpoem
@vectorpoem

I could sit in The Blue Boar for ages, making up stories for all the patrons, knowing that I'd be able to track them down the next day. They weren't spawned at the doors, forced into existence so that the pub would feel like a pub and them snuffed out of existence as they left, they were the same people who would be walking the streets the next day and selling me goods.
And there was always at least one among them, could have been anyone, who would order an egg. Itโ€™d just arrive, plonked down in front of them unceremoniously, a massive plate with a single egg in the middle of it. Even though it didnโ€™t matter that they were eating an egg, in that it wouldnโ€™t have any effect on their social standing or health, it really did matter because it never failed to make me smile.
Which poor bastard is on the eggs tonight, Iโ€™d think, watching as sweetmeats from every corner of the world were laid out in front of the gathering. And then, BAM, there it would be. Egg on a plate. No cress. No mayo. The purchaser wolfing it down, hoping no one had noticed, trying to hide their shame.

from https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/gaming-made-me-ultima-vii


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